Topic: FBI hate crime statistics

Today’s tragic shooting in Kansas City doesn’t mean that the United States has become unsafe for Jews. The person arrested for the incident at the Jewish Community Center campus in Johnson County, Kansas which left three dead allegedly yelled “Heil Hitler” and sought to inquire if his victims were Jewish. Only the tiniest minority of Americans shares such hatred. Unlike attacks on Jews in Europe where a rising tide of anti-Semitism has called the viability of Jewish life there into question, even a shocking event such as this one doesn’t change the fact that Jew hatred remains a marginal phenomenon on these shores. American society has embraced Jews in every possible way. But however much we should resist the temptation to draw broad conclusions from the acts of what may be a lone madman, it is a reminder that anti-Semitic violence remains the most common form of religious-based hate crime committed in this country.

While much of our chattering classes remain obsessed with the fear of Islamophobia and are determined to keep alive the myth of a post 9/11 backlash against American Muslims, FBI hate crime statistics continue to show that anti-Jewish attacks outnumber those directed at Muslims by a huge margin. In every year since 9/11, the numbers show that attacks on Muslims are far less frequent than those on Jews. This is especially important to remember not just because of the sad violence in Kansas City but because so much of the media and other institutions are so heavily invested in the myths about Islamophobia while not taking strong stands against non-violent forms of anti-Semitism, such as the movement to wage economic warfare against the State of Israel.

Sadly, even institutions such as Brandeis University, which has strong ties to the Jewish community, remain so sensitive to charges of hostility to Islam that they are afraid to honor a person like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has spoken out against Islamic oppression of women. But while worries about a non-existent wave of prejudice against Muslims are without basis, even in the United States those willing to express hostility to Jews and to, as the BDS movement has shown, subject their state to prejudicial treatment they would not inflict on any other religious or ethnic group, remains an unfortunate reality.

Today’s tragic shooting in Kansas City doesn’t mean that the United States has become unsafe for Jews. The person arrested for the incident at the Jewish Community Center campus in Johnson County, Kansas which left three dead allegedly yelled “Heil Hitler” and sought to inquire if his victims were Jewish. Only the tiniest minority of Americans shares such hatred. Unlike attacks on Jews in Europe where a rising tide of anti-Semitism has called the viability of Jewish life there into question, even a shocking event such as this one doesn’t change the fact that Jew hatred remains a marginal phenomenon on these shores. American society has embraced Jews in every possible way. But however much we should resist the temptation to draw broad conclusions from the acts of what may be a lone madman, it is a reminder that anti-Semitic violence remains the most common form of religious-based hate crime committed in this country.

While much of our chattering classes remain obsessed with the fear of Islamophobia and are determined to keep alive the myth of a post 9/11 backlash against American Muslims, FBI hate crime statistics continue to show that anti-Jewish attacks outnumber those directed at Muslims by a huge margin. In every year since 9/11, the numbers show that attacks on Muslims are far less frequent than those on Jews. This is especially important to remember not just because of the sad violence in Kansas City but because so much of the media and other institutions are so heavily invested in the myths about Islamophobia while not taking strong stands against non-violent forms of anti-Semitism, such as the movement to wage economic warfare against the State of Israel.

Sadly, even institutions such as Brandeis University, which has strong ties to the Jewish community, remain so sensitive to charges of hostility to Islam that they are afraid to honor a person like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has spoken out against Islamic oppression of women. But while worries about a non-existent wave of prejudice against Muslims are without basis, even in the United States those willing to express hostility to Jews and to, as the BDS movement has shown, subject their state to prejudicial treatment they would not inflict on any other religious or ethnic group, remains an unfortunate reality.

In her classic 1992 book If I Am Not For Myself … The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews, Ruth Wisse wrote that anti-Semitism was “the 20th century’s most durable ideology” since it was employed by several movements including fascists, Nazis, and Communists and yet had survived and transcended those horrors to reassert itself in a new era. Today the greatest threat to the Jewish people comes not from stray neo-Nazis but from Islamist terror and a genocidal theocracy in Iran that seeks nuclear capability. But whether focused on the remnants of old threats or the peril from the new, Jew hatred remains an unfortunate fact of life. While the crime that took place in Kansas City should not distort our view of American society or cause us to forget that barriers to acceptance of Jews have been almost totally erased, it should serve as a reminder that Jew hatred is far from dead.

When it comes to the question of America’s alleged Islamophobia, there is a consensus in the American media: American Muslims have been under siege since the 9/11 attacks. Every attempt on the part of law-enforcement agencies to probe the growth of homegrown terrorism and the possible incitement to hate and violence being conducted at some mosques, as well as by community groups influenced or controlled by Islamists, is branded as more proof of the allege persecution of Muslims and Arabs. The fact that no proof of discrimination or systematic violence other than anecdotal claims is ever brought forward is disregarded so as not to impinge on the need for Americans to feel guilty about the treatment of Muslims.

But with the annual release of the FBI’s hate crime numbers, statistical proof is once again available for those who are interested in the real answer as to which groups are subjected to the most attacks. This year’s numbers, like those of every other previous year since they began compiling such statistics, are clear: Jews remain the No. 1 target of hate crimes in America and no other group comes even close. Incidents involving Muslims, who are, according to the unchallenged meme that is central to every story or broadcast about the subject, the prime targets actually suffer only a fraction as much as Jews. Is it too much to ask reporters who regurgitate the same tired, unproven story lines about Muslims in the coming year to take these facts into account?

When it comes to the question of America’s alleged Islamophobia, there is a consensus in the American media: American Muslims have been under siege since the 9/11 attacks. Every attempt on the part of law-enforcement agencies to probe the growth of homegrown terrorism and the possible incitement to hate and violence being conducted at some mosques, as well as by community groups influenced or controlled by Islamists, is branded as more proof of the allege persecution of Muslims and Arabs. The fact that no proof of discrimination or systematic violence other than anecdotal claims is ever brought forward is disregarded so as not to impinge on the need for Americans to feel guilty about the treatment of Muslims.

But with the annual release of the FBI’s hate crime numbers, statistical proof is once again available for those who are interested in the real answer as to which groups are subjected to the most attacks. This year’s numbers, like those of every other previous year since they began compiling such statistics, are clear: Jews remain the No. 1 target of hate crimes in America and no other group comes even close. Incidents involving Muslims, who are, according to the unchallenged meme that is central to every story or broadcast about the subject, the prime targets actually suffer only a fraction as much as Jews. Is it too much to ask reporters who regurgitate the same tired, unproven story lines about Muslims in the coming year to take these facts into account?

As in previous years, Jews top the figures for hate crimes, which the FBI claims are down from previous years. Of the 1,340 incidents of anti-religious hate crimes reported, 674 or 62.4 percent were anti-Jewish in nature. Only 130 incidents or 11.6 percent involved Muslim victims. These figures are not much different from those assembled by the government for previous years. In virtually every year, the number of anti-Semitic incidents is a multiple of those involving Muslims.

It is possible that some anti-Muslim attacks might be categorized as an ethnic issue involving Arabs rather than a religious one. But even if we were to try and take some attacks involving national origins, again the enormous gap between the anti-Semitic incidents and those about Muslims is not bridged. The total number of those attacks involving that category that were not about targeting Hispanics (which make up over 60 percent of that total) was 283 and it is likely that, at best, only some of those were about Muslims or Arabs.

It is true that the Anti-Defamation League has criticized the FBI report for trumpeting the overall decline in hate crimes. The ADL rightly points out that hate crimes reporting isn’t mandatory in parts of the country and that the number of agencies funneling figures to the FBI actually declined from 14,500 to 1,3022 in 2012. So it’s likely that there wasn’t any real decline in the number of hate crimes.

But there is no proof or any logical reason to believe that this flaw would lead to any underreporting of anti-Muslim crimes since the percentage of such incidents in 2012 is essentially the same as in previous years.

What does this all mean?

First, as much as we should decry all hate crimes and urge those responsible to be prosecuted and harshly punished, no matter who their victims might be, there is no epidemic of such incidents directed at any single group.

Though Jews are the most likely victims of religious crimes, no reasonable person can claim that they are under siege or that Jewish life is under attack in any manner in this country. Indeed, as the Pew Survey on American Jews that I discussed in the November issue of COMMENTARY reported, less than 20 percent of Jews have even experienced an anti-Semitic remark, let alone an attack. Anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world and particularly in Europe, but in a nation where a tenth of the U.S. Senate and a third of the U.S. Supreme Court are Jews, its impossible to argue that there are any genuine obstacles to Jewish achievement, let alone a wave of Jew-hatred.

Yet, we are asked by the mainstream media to believe that a group which claims to have roughly the same small slice of the national population as the Jews but which, at best, suffers only a fifth of the hate crimes incidents as Jews, is actually laboring under a grievous and discriminatory wave of bias attacks. It not only makes no sense, it is not even remotely congruent with the facts.

America isn’t perfect. Hate still exists against religious and ethnic groups, and religious minorities. Yet once again the annual release of FBI statistics debunks the notion of a post 9-11 backlash against Muslims. But don’t expect the liberal mainstream media to notice this or to take it into account when they resurrect the same misleading story lines in the coming year.